Archive for the ‘craft’ Category

I’m not sure what little kid didn’t play with boxes when they were little. I can remember occasions when my nieces and nephews would toss the toy aside to play with a box, building school buses or airplanes, playing house…even in this age of technology. So if you’ve ever painted on a box, cut holes in a box, stacked boxes or sat in an empty refrigerator box, you’ll enjoy this gangsta ode to crafts.

Yesterday I arrived far to early to an eye doctor appointment, and it just so happened to be next door to a JoAnn Fabric’s craft store. I ended up picking up a pair of knitting needles and a little $2 booklet on knitting for beginners.

I was lucky enough to have a grandmother and a mother that taught me to crochet when I was little and I managed to get about half way through an afghan that ended up a garbage bag full of squares in the closet. I need much more instant gratification than that.

Despite my failure to keep up with crochet, I had always wanted to learn to knit. I think I like that the needles click, and that the work always seemed very light and flexible when it was done. I know crochet can be too, but mine never was.

Since yesterday I have made about 6 very crooked little bookmarks. They’re ugly and the stitches are terrible but I have discovered what I have always wanted to know….how on earth fabric is created by banging two sticks together.

Now that I know it I am not so sure what to do with it. I looked up beginner projects and came up with a list of pot holders, dish rags and scarves. None of which am I willing to put in massive effort for.

I think my foray into knitting will end here. I honestly cannot think of anything fun that needs to be knitted by a beginner for summer. Can you?

In the mean time, here is something knitted that I cannot make but Vegangurl can.

Fruit Cozy Set by Vegangurl

I don’t know why you would need these but I like that the fruit is dressed up. I guess it would keep an apple clean, but isn’t that what the banana peel is for? Is a banana not already cozy? Someday, I could knit something this interesting.

For a recent Baby Shower I used these pretty paper flowers for decorations. I’ll show you how to use these and other paper craft ideas in your party planning with an upcoming post. For now, follow this tutorial and whip a few up!

I recommend using a hot glue gun on the flower for a cleaner look, but a stapler is still best for the stem and leaves.

I am taking a break from my post-christmas-present-posts to solicit your help on a project that has stumped me.

It has been nearly a year since my Grandpa died. He was a really wonderful person and greatly missed by all of us. My aunt salvaged some of his clothing to make a beautiful quilt for my grandmother. It’s a beautiful piece that has a lot of meaning and comfort for her.

When my aunt came to visit at Thanksgiving she brought some of my grandpa’s old shirts and thought I could make something out of them. I’ve been thinking on it long and hard and can’t decide what keepsake to sew out of these shirts!

They are both cotton, button down, short sleeve shirts size XL.

So here’s the deal! Post your keepsake sewing ideas involving one or both of my grandpa’s shirts in the comments of this post. I’ll give it about two weeks before making a selection!

The winning idea-supplier will get to select any item from the Megnificent Made Etsy store as their prize!

That includes camera wristlets…

Pink Floral Camera Wristlet by Megnificent Made

Custom Coloring Books…

Vespa In Paris Custom Coloring Book by Megnificent Made

Or writing and drawing fabric notebooks!

Sketches in Blue Fabric Book by Megnificent Made

So start exercising your creative brains and send some keepsake ideas this way! Any questions feel free to ask. I’ll give about two weeks (more if necessary) to see some posting!

Note: Subscribe to my RSS feed on the right to help you follow my blog and find out the winner!

Here is another post-Christmas-post! For my brother’s girlfriends I made purses. These lovely little bags were created with a free pattern from Made by Rae. This bag, called the butter cup bag, has a little pocket inside and a magnetic closure. It was pretty easy to make and I really love the result!

This lovely pink and grey purse was for Ashley. My brother told me she loves pink and I found out later the grey matches an outfit she has 🙂

Jen has mentioned a few times how much she loves black and white accented with red! The inside has a very subtle red stripe and I really loved the hounds tooth for a winter purse.

The butter cup pattern was really easy and It taught me how to install those great little magnetic snaps as well as creating nice neat pleats. I recommend you download and give it a try! It only takes a quarter lining and a quarter fabric.

As promised…post Christmas gift posts! I wish I could have posted this before christmas because it’s so hard to find crafty gift ideas for guys. Both of my brothers are into fishing so I decided to make these fishing pole bags for them.

The whole idea was to make some thing that will carry their fishing poles as well as all of their tackle. I made it from ripstop and kind of fashioned it after the bags that carry folding chairs.

There are two pockets at the top that fit either their tools or the plastic organizers I included.

The pocket for the fishing poles stops about a half-foot from the bottom of the bag and synchs shut. This pocket can accomodate either full length poles or poles that come apart.

The bottom portion of the bag zips shut and has round stacking/interlocking Tupperware to hold their worms and bait.

Here is a sketch I made before I got to cutting and sewing.

The pole extends from inside the bag but holds steady because the weight of it, the handle and reel, sit at the bottom of the bag. The boys really loved this gift and have promised to give some feedback after they stuff their goods into it so I can get to making them for my etsy store before the fishing season gets going!

There are more christmas gift posts to come. The whole family is flat on the couches with a stomach bug thats being passed around so you can bet I’ll be quite attentive to the blog for the next few days!

Please feel free to share with me any great christmas crafts you gave or received with megnificent made!

This post will give you a bit of information on cardboard furniture. I recently made this adorable little cardboard play table for my niece’s tea-party christmas present. It’s really easy to do, inexpensive (especially if you’re using recycled cardboard) and far more durable than you would think!

The first thing you’ll want to do is collect your cardboard. I won’t give you very exact measurements because it’s really up to you what size furniture you’d like to make. This tale is about 14 inches high and 2.5 ft square. I recommend you recycle cardboard. Go to your local grocery store or electronics store and ask for their boxes. I’ve done this before and got really great heavy-duty cardboard from a local fruit stand. For this table I bought cardboard at the art store for about $3 a sheet and it took three sheets. I just didn’t have time to run around and find any. For the top of the table I used three-ply cardboard for strength and the rest was made with single ply corrugated cardboard.

You will also need a good sharp box cutter, white tissue paper, gesso, a big foam paint brush, a glue gun and paper tape. Paper tape can be found at your art store. It is generally used for water-color painting. Paper tape has an adhesive on the back that is water activated. The benefit of this tape is that it is paper and when you paint over it will absorb paint rather than bead up.

These are the pieces I cut out for the table…

The side of my table is scalloped but you can make that anyway you like. The picture on the right is the table leg. The table legs I made are 14 inches tall and 2in square. It’s important for the table legs that the corrugations in the cardboard runs verticle to give it strength. Where I’ve marked the dotted lines score the cardboard (don’t cut all the way through) and that will give you nice sharp corners on your table leg. The last panel is .25in wider so that it can over lap where it will glue together.

Get out your glue gun and start gluing all of your pieces together. apply glue to the edge of the table top piece and attach the table side. The next part is important for strength. Use the glue gun like a caulking gun and run it along all of the seams forcing more glue into cracks and making the seams smooth and strong. Do it on the inside seams.

Next you will use the paper tape!Water activate the sticky side of the tape with your foam brush and use the tape to cover any raw edges. Use it along all of the seams and press it flat. To cover round edges cut darts out of the tape and smooth it around the edges.

Next, grab your gesso, tissue paper and foam brush. Paint the table and apply sheets of tissue paper as you go. Put tissue paper down on the wet gesso and paint more white gesso over it. This will give you a good plain white base to paint on later. Make sure not to run your brush over the tissue paper too many times or it will tear.

In this photo you can see the glue used as caulk on the rough edges and the paper tape covering the seams on the inside of the table. This table isn’t as finished as some proper cardboard furniture pieces but it’s for kids so I didn’t go nuts. I wanted the legs of my table to be detachable so I created pockets to shove the legs into. They’re really snug so that the legs don’t fall out.

Paint the table as you like. I did a yellow wood grain on the legs and painted the top like a table-cloth. Finish the piece with a few coats of varnish, this will make it much more durable and keep it safe from water!

Don’t limit your cardboard furniture to your kids! I’ve made pieces for my apartment before and they are so unique and beautiful. Most people think it is wood until they pick it up! They’re extremely durable and sturdy. I have a chest of drawers that I can stand on. Once they’re varnished they are quite safe.

I don’t know that as a crafter I should share this…but I have to admit I laughed…a lot.

Have you heard of Regretsy? It’s full of some really….creative…finds from Etsy featured with comical and sometimes mean commentary. There is HEAPS of really wonderful things on Etsy and there are so many talented people on there. Perhaps it is more a question of taste….but come on, really?

I am not including the details of the seller on here because I feel a little bad because someone did make it…but that is all available on regretsy.com

Some items are clearly taking the piss. It’s especially obvious by their descriptions. It’s just that it seems a lot of time, effort and expense for a gag gift! There is a person for every product though. One seller that was featured on the site actually said that it resulted in a complete sell-out. I guess any publicity is good publicity!

Check it out though, it is quite funny. It’s not only picking on peoples skills or talents but also ideas for unusual (but not bad) products, far out there art, and some careless mistakes in products (spelling and such).

As promised! A photo of the completed strawberry short-cake! A few weeks ago I posted a HOW-TO for this adorable felt play food which you can find here. You can find a tutorial on the strawberries here. I try to make lots of How-To posts so check out that whole section of the blog if you’re feeling crafty.

It took me a while to get this posted because I’ve been working so hard on all my christmas goodies. This tea party for my nieces (more of which can be seen here) has been my big project since October and I’ve poured a lot of time and love into. I absolutely cannot wait until Christmas to see the reveal.

I spent yesterday evening constructing a table for their party which is a really simple and fun project I will post more about soon. It is made of cardboard but is very very structurally sound. I’ve made cardboard furniture before and absolutely love the concept of recycled furniture that can be so creative and unique visually. I’ll be sure to post more about that soon.

I took all of these photos before the table was completed but I really love how all of the elements of their tea party together are such beautiful bright colors. It’s just so pretty to look at. I can’t help but leave it all assembled until Christmas.

Since these photos I have painted a purple lace doily on the table with their initials as well as painted the legs of the table pale yellow with faint wood grain. The scallops of the table has purple trim now too. I didn’t make them chairs for their table because, as you can see in earlier posts about the project, I had made them special embroidered and fringed pillows to sit on.

The latest addition to the table are these adorable felt fruits from a pattern by UmeCraft on Etsy. The apple velcros together and slices apart. The Orange comes apart into 6 slices, and the banana peels!

Their dessert selection is not limited to Strawberry Shortcake! These girls can also pick from four different cupcakes! This one here is their lemon merengue with orange peel and a lemon wedge. I made special cupcake wrappers with their names on them in three bright fun colors too. In my final tea party post I will show more in detail on the cupcakes.

If you’d like to see more photos of what I’ve been up to with this project, please visit the tea party post to see more about the table ware, and my flickr site to see food more in detail.

I can promise you two more posts on this subject…if you don’t mind! One on cardboard furniture with this table as the feature, and one on the final project after christmas. It’ll be a part of my slew of holiday gift ideas for 2010!

Here is another one of my promised posts that I am checking off of my list of things to do.

Last week I had my first craft show and tried to make lots to save money. One of the things I cut cost on were paper bags. The cheapest I found were 13 bags for $6 but I found that the office supply store sold a roll of shipping paper for $5 and with this sewing technique and the size bag I wanted, I was able to get 60+ out of it! Quite a deal if you have the time!

Firstly…I apologize for the terrible photos. There isn’t much good lighting once the sun goes down in this house and I was working frantically to get things done for the craft show.

Fold the paper back on its self at about the size you want your finished bag width. Add an inch or so for seam allowance and cut it off.

I then folded that piece in half and cut it to get the right height for my bag, but then that depends on what size bag you’re going for.

Here are the two bags I can get out of one strip of paper. You are then going to sew down along the cut edge of the bag. I use a long and wide zig zag stitch to make it decorative. I also used bright threads, and mixed up my bobbin and thread colors.

Once that stitch is sewn, use a bone folder to center the seam over the back of the bag, press the edges of the bag and flatten the seam up the back.

The seam should run up the back like this. I then used my paper-cutter to add a scalloped edge to the top and bottom of the bag. You don’t need to but it looked nice!

Fold up the bottom edge of the bag and press it flat with the bone folder. Zig zag stitch it down. I again used bright colors and a different bobbin color to show up on the front of the bag.

All done! It’s the same concept as an envelope really and works best for flatter items. I was selling my custom coloring books so a little bright tissue paper, a book, and this cute bag customized with my hand carved stamp worked out great.